Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-09-28-Speech-3-387"
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"en.20050928.27.3-387"2
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"Mr President, I wish to thank Mr Menéndez del Valle for a successful report in which human rights questions have been incorporated into the partnership in an exemplary manner and not set aside as if they were a separate category, as is often the way.
India’s development in recent decades has been remarkable. Its technological development is looked upon with envy universally, and at the same time it has managed to preserve its multiethnic, multireligious, multicultural and linguistically diverse society. EU-Indian relations are close; we are friends. We have a particularly high regard for the way this, the world’s largest democracy, is trying, through legislation, actively to rectify the defects observable in its society. One example of this is the practice of positive discrimination.
Good legislation is not enough, however: time and effort must be invested in its implementation. The Indian Human Rights Commission has already done a remarkable job, but local authorities should also systematically comply with good political decisions. The EU could provide support here by means of its development programmes, for example, which would focus on the fight against discrimination.
Approximately 35% of India’s billion or more inhabitants live below the poverty line, and a large number of people are still totally deprived of basic rights. The single most significant reason for this is the caste system, which legitimises human inequality. Especially worrying is the plight of women and the more than 160 million Dalits (Scheduled Castes), whose exploitation is socially accepted and commonplace. Those Dalits who try to break away from the caste system by marrying into a higher caste or, for example, by acquiring education or land legally, often become victims of physical violence and social outcasts. Local authorities are all too ready to interpret the law to the benefit of a higher caste. We Members of the European Parliament have on many occasions raised the issue of human rights violations resulting from the caste system, but so far we have seen little practical action on the part of the EU.
Now that industry is talking openly about the leaps in technology that India needs and which the EU can help realise, the EU should be providing India with more tangible support in issues of human rights in order for it to be able to put its excellent political will into practice."@en1
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